A More Accurate Volumetric Particle Rendering Method Using the Pixel Shader

Quote:Many games, even on current "next-gen" hardware, render particles using camera facing quads. In many cases these particles are used to represent volumes of many smaller microscopic particles. These volumes typically are simulated simply by determining how much contribution they present to the view using a simple blend function. This blend function defines how much the simulated volume of particles obscures the scene behind them.

Although this method has been employed in games for many years, this article defines a method using shader technology to more physically represent these volumetric particles. This method will give a more accurate visual representation of the simulated volumes as well as potentially decreasing the necessary number of particles, which in turn will help to improve render performance.